Maldives

ECONOMY

Gross Domestic Product

In the early 1990s, Maldives was ranked by the UN as
one of
the world's twenty-nine least developed countries. The
World Bank
estimated Maldives' gross national product
(GNP--see Glossary) in
1991 at US$101 million and its per capita income at
US$460. The
1993 estimated real growth rate was 6 percent. Between
1980 and
1991, GNP was estimated to increase at an average annual
rate of
10.2 percent.

President Gayoom's development philosophy centers on
increasing Maldives' self-sufficiency and improving the
standard
of living of residents of the outer islands. In 1994 a
considerable gap continued to exist between the general
prosperity of the inhabitants of Male and the limited
resources
and comparative isolation of those living on the outer
islands.
The Third National Development Plan (1991-93) reflected
these
objectives and aimed to improve overall living standards,
to
reduce the imbalance in population density and
socioeconomic
progress between Male and the atolls, and to achieve
greater
self-sufficiency for purposes of future growth.

The fishing and tourist industries are the main
contributors
to the gross domestic product
(GDP--see Glossary). In 1992
the
fishing industry provided approximately 15 percent of
total GDP.
Revenues from tourism were comparable to 80 percent of
visible
export receipts in 1992, contributing approximately 17
percent of
GDP. The country had no known mineral resources, and its
cropland--small and scattered over the approximately 200
inhabited islands--was inadequate to sustain a burgeoning
population. Agriculture employed a little more than 7
percent of
the labor force in 1990 in the limited production of
coconuts,
cassava, taro, corn, sweet potatoes, and fruit, and
accounted for
almost 10 percent of GDP. These basic foodstuffs
represented only
10 percent of domestic food needs with the remainder being
imported.